As you translate, you may encounter expressions, puns, or jargon that are specific to the original language and may be difficult to translate effectively.

In such cases, translate the concept or point the article is trying to convey and not the exact words. : Take care to ensure you capture the overall message, and don't worry about losing the humor or the colloquialism.

Proper names

Company names and product names should never be translated. Proper company names and product names should always remain in English, no matter what language you are translating for.

People's names should remain in English for Latin-based languages, but you may transliterate them for non-Latinbased alphabets.

Terminology

For help with translating tricky constructions or technical terms, consult the translation-sharing site to: TAUS.

Simply enter your desired text and then choose which language to translate it from and to. Not all terms are included for all languages, but this can be a helpful tool for completing accurate translations.

Titles of works

When you run across the title of a book, program, feature, distro, or other public work, check to see if that title has already been officially translated for your language (by the publisher or distributor), and if so, use that translation.

If you cannot find a translation for that particular title in your language, do your best to translate it as accurately as possible.

Units of measure

Convert units of measure to make them relevant for the intended language or region.

UserBase proposes to have Team Leaders for each language. Techbase may, at a later date, do the same. As we get leaders appointed, they will take charge of a page of guidelines for their specific language, where they will be named. They will have final say on any question relating to their language. The guidelines will be linked from Language-specific guideline pages.

I propose that the Discussion page attached to this page should be used for orderly debate about general issues noted, particularly issues where existing markup is causing problems. I would ask you to put a Watch on Talk:Translation_Workflow.